At Mathews Elementary School in Austin, Texas, 10 fifth grade girls are sitting cross-legged on the music room floor with closed eyes and hands folded in their laps, waiting for the egg timer to go off. Jeanne Demers, 47, a campus coordinator for GENaustin—the Girls Empowerment Network—is overseeing this “mindfulness” exercise, which is intended to give today’s text-crazy, over-stimulated, media-saturated kids a quiet, still moment in their hectic days. One girl swings her hair around, another peeks at her friends, but most of them look peaceful. When the egg timer goes off, they journal about what went through their minds during the three-minute “mindful listening” exercise.

Demers, a pretty, bright-eyed woman who looks a bit like Annette Bening, reports that this peacefulness did not come right away. “It was a hard sell at first, suggesting quiet and stillness to some of the girls I work with.”

Demers is trained in something called Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR), a technique developed by Jon Kabat-Zinn at the University of Massachusetts Medical School. The Mathews girls took to mindful practice with interest and openness, but when instructing girls in some of her schools to “put on their quiet, still bodies and sit like queens,” they made every possible excuse why they couldn’t sit quietly with their eyes closed, alone with their own thoughts, for even one minute. They claimed it was “really awkward” and tried escaping to the bathroom, which showed Demers “how much they actually needed this!” Today, when she comes once a week with her Tibetan bowl (“the girls jockey for who gets to ring it this week”) and egg timer, “they won’t let me not do it.” Besides a bit of quiet time, what mindfulness really gives them, she has learned, is the ability to self-regulate their feelings and behavior by giving them a relationship with their own minds. “That,” says Jeanne Demers, “is social intelligence.”

When our Founding Fathers wrote the Constitution, they did not declare that all men are created equal and mindful, but they might well have in light of this growing phenomenon. “Mindfulness” in the form of meditation, yoga, centering prayer, and other mind-body practices, is sweeping across our stressed-out land like a great breath of fresh air. In addition to a growing number of public school districts, major corporations, prison systems, healthcare organizations, arms of the U.S. military—even our representatives on Capitol Hill—are turning to mindfulness practices to help meet the demands of our hyperkinetic world.

Our nonstop culture doesn’t lend itself to moments of restfulness. But even if you’re constantly on the go, these 10 meditation apps make it easy to take a few minutes to reflect: on the bus, during your lunch break, or while you’re catching up on quiet time at home.

According to the World Health Organization, the yearly cost of stress to American businesses is as high as $300 billion. Over the past 30 years, self-reported levels of stress have increased 18 percent for women and 25 percent for men. By all accounts, we have never been more maxed out or deficiently attentive in our nation’s history. Fortunately, help is on the way. “Mindfulness is the next great movement in the United States,” I’m told by Congressman Tim Ryan (D-Ohio). The author of A Mindful Nation, Ryan has become the foremost crusader for higher consciousness on Capitol Hill. When I ask the congressman whether mindfulness practice isn’t a bit, well, esoteric, for mainstream America, Ryan, a good-old-boy type with an easy manner, lets out a good laugh. “Go tell that to the Marines,” he says. “Go tell that to corporations like Proctor and Gamble, Target, General Mills. There is nothing esoteric about it. Mindfulness is completely simple. We’re talking about watching the breath here. There’s nothing un-American about that!”

Last year, Ryan founded what’s known as the Quiet Time Caucus on Capitol Hill. Once a week, 30 minutes of quiet time is made available in the speaker’s chapel just off the rotunda for anyone who wants it. The caucus has been a great success among members of both parties. Ryan explains, “There are no rules. You can meditate, you can pray, or stare into space. The only rule is you can’t talk.” He hopes that learning to be quiet together will help members of our gridlocked government to reconnect and find solutions to the nation’s problems. “There’s a great deal of frustration in Washington right now,” Ryan reminds me. “When our lawmakers can come together, and approach their jobs with a touch of mindfulness, everyone is bound to benefit.”

A mindfulness movement on Capitol Hill? What’s going on here? Something long overdue but not out of the ordinary, if you listen to advocates of the practice. “Mindfulness is an inherent human ability—something that we all have—to be fully attentive to where we are and what we are doing at any given moment,” says Barry Boyce, editor-in-chief of Mindful magazine.

“It’s a methodology that anyone can use,” adds Sharon Salzberg, co-founder of the Insight Meditation Society in Barre, Massachusetts. “You don’t have to have a belief system. It requires no faith or ideology. Mindfulness is as simple as watching your breath.” When she and her colleagues Jack Kornfield and Joseph Goldstein returned from their travels in Asia 35 years ago and began informally sharing meditation practices learned from Buddhist teachers (“just because it was helping us so much”), mindfulness was a movement catering to the chosen few. Today, Salzberg’s nonstop travel schedule takes her to public schools, domestic violence shelters, hospitals, financial institutions, programs to help international humanitarian aid workers, and more. “I never thought I’d live to see the day,” Salzberg admits. “It’s amazing to see what’s happening.”

At Google, Chade-Meng Tan, one of the company’s earliest engineers (and founder of their Search Inside Yourself Program) compares this mainstreaming of “mind fitness” to the early days of the physical fitness movement in the U.S. “In the beginning, fitness was just for ‘nuts,’” says Meng (as Tan likes to be called). “Then in the 1920s, after it was studied, it became an established field. People knew it was good for them and learned how to do it. This revolution will happen in the same way. Mindfulness is ‘meta-fitness.’”

Hundreds of studies conclude that when we spend regular intervals being quiet, emptying our minds, relaxing our nervous systems, and raising awareness of what’s going on between our ears, we are, indeed, happier, healthier, more competent, helpful, empathic, and creative-minded people. Research suggests that mindfulness practices are useful in the treatment of pain, stress, anxiety, depressive relapse, disordered eating, and addiction.

Using the fMRI machine, neuroscientists have deduced that engagement in mindful thinking causes what they call a “left shift” in the brain. This results in increased activation of the brain’s left frontal regions, a process associated with more positive emotional states. Richard Davidson, a Harvard-educated psychiatrist and researcher at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, has studied the effects of meditation on the brain for 30 years. “Mindfulness practices can actually change the function and structure of the brain,” Davidson explains. “We have the ability to regulate both attention and emotion, both of which are more flexible and plastic than we had previously considered. In other words, our behavior can literally help shape the structure and functioning of our own brains.”

Proponents of mindfulness hope that practice will ultimately lead to paradigmatic shifts in how we do business. According to Meng, mindfulness is perfectly compatible with a more enlightened approach to capitalism. Yes, it’ll always be a dog-eat-dog world, but “people play sports among friends,” he points out. “It’s competitive but not in a negative way. The key is to compete in ways that consciously create the greater good. We must remember that the human mind can be fundamentally upgraded in a way that’s good for the individual, good for business, and good for the world all at once.”

“Finding the win-win-win is the way,” agrees Janice Marturano, a vice-president at General Mills and now head of the Institute for Mindful Leadership. “People today are double-booked and living on auto pilot. What I hear over and over again from leaders around the world, when they’re asked what the one thing is that they most need to be the kind of leader they want to be, they all say space. When we begin to transform our organizations and communities, we also transform the way in which we meet our lives.” Marturano suggests that we begin by taking what she calls “purposeful pauses” during the day. “Purposeful pauses don’t add time to your day,” Marturano is quick to acknowledge, “but they do encourage us to find those moments in the day when we can reset. The body gets rest, the mind gets rest, and this space makes a big difference in how exhausted we are at the end of the day.”

Facing a record suicide rate and thousands of veterans seeking treatment for post-traumatic stress, the U.S. military has begun testing a series of brain calming exercises called Mindfulness-Based Mind Fitness Training (or M-Fit). “The data support it,” retired Major General Melvin Spiese told NBC news. Spiese was convinced after looking at the scientific research and taking M-Fit himself. “While teaching troops to shoot makes them a better warfighter, teaching mindfulness makes them a better person by helping them to decompress, which could have lasting effects,” he went on to say. Such as performing more effectively on the battlefield. Such as improving cognitive function. “It’s like doing pushups for the brain,” Major Spiese has said.

Back in Austin, Jeanne Demers is inspired about going even further with mindfulness practice with her clubGEN girls next year. “It’s exciting,” she says, “because they get it. They’re like little scientists, these girls, observing and noticing what they’re giving their attention to. That ability allows for so much—in every aspect of their lives. It’s a total game changer.”

Energy drinks may seem like a quick fix, but they come with long-term risks. Photo courtesy Shutterstock.

Do products like 5-hour ENERGY work—and are they safe? For adults seeking the occasional boost, the answer is a qualified yes. Caffeine and other compounds in energy drinks help us stay focused and energized by triggering a spike in the stress hormone cortisol. But frequent use overworks the body’s cortisol producers (adrenal glands), interferes with sleep, and can boost heart rate and blood pressure.

A regular diet of energy “shots” of high-dose ingredient blends is a short-lived fix with long-term risks, says Nikol Margiotta, D.N., a specialist at The Raby Institute for Integrative Medicine at Northwestern University in Chicago.

“Many of us are running on an empty tank and then want to know why we—or our kids—are tired and can’t concentrate. Relying on energy drinks to get through the day is a big red flag to change your ways with better sleep, nutrition, and stress management,” Dr. Margiotta says.

For the occasional afternoon pick-me-up, try chocolate. “I like organic chocolate because it contains small amounts of phenylethylamine and caffeine for sharpness and focus. But I don’t do it everyday,” concludes the expert.

]]>The Challenge of Remote Caregivinghttp://www.saturdayeveningpost.com/2012/05/31/health-and-family/the-challenge-of-remote-caregiving.html
Thu, 31 May 2012 18:09:14 +0000http://www.saturdayeveningpost.com/?p=59360The very idea of caring for a family member in a different zip code—much less a different time zone—has little precedent. Go back 100 years and most extended families shared a single dwelling. At the most, grandma and grandpa lived across town. Today that’s all changed. The centrifugal forces propelling family members far and wide […]

]]>The very idea of caring for a family member in a different zip code—much less a different time zone—has little precedent. Go back 100 years and most extended families shared a single dwelling. At the most, grandma and grandpa lived across town. Today that’s all changed. The centrifugal forces propelling family members far and wide seems only to be increasing. A 1997 study estimated that more than 7 million Americans were distance caregivers. More recently, the National Council on Aging [NCOA] projected that the number of distance caregivers would increase to 14 million by 2012.

While it is well known that caregivers in general are more prone to depression and physical illness than the rest of the population, few have looked into the particular challenges for those who do so from afar. One who has is Polly Mazanec, Ph.D., assistant professor at Case Western Reserve and an advanced practice nurse at University Hospitals Seidman Cancer Center. I spoke to Mazanec about her findings, which were published recently in Oncology Nursing Forum.

Q: Looking at the differences between local caregivers and distance caregivers, what jumps out at you?

A: Long distance folks were significantly more anxious and the female caregivers in particular had higher depressive symptomatology. But what was most concerning, both groups had distress scores that exceeded the National Comprehensive Cancer Center guidelines for intervention.

Q: In other words, they ought to be getting help. Are they?

A: Local caregivers are getting help. Distance caregivers are not. In my work as an advance practice nurse in a comprehensive cancer center, there is a whole team to support the patient. There are multiple opportunities for care, including emotional and spiritual support. The team can also assist the family, both with practical matters and general guidance. With distance caregiving, families are left out in the cold.

Q: What are the greatest sources of stress for the distance caregiver?

A: The uncertainty and the guilt. Not knowing exactly how a patient is doing from day to day; wishing one could be there to provide more support; not knowing when or how often to visit. In many ways, that last one is the hardest question: if one can only afford to come visit for one week, when should that be? There’s the cost of travel, the commitment to a job, and the competing needs of one’s own family.

Q: In your article, you described a caregiver whose mother had advanced cancer. She waited until after the chemo to make her visit, but found her mother terribly debilitated and barely able to communicate. This individual was filled with regret, and wished she had gone earlier. When is the best time to pay that visit?

A: Just as when people ask, “Is my loved one dying?” we can’t answer that question exactly. But, we can help the caregiver decide on the timing. Some have a relationship where they would like best to be helping with the details, cleaning, administering medications, and so forth. Others would like to be there when the patient is feeling better so they can talk, do a “life review,” or spend time going to lunch and doing something fun. It really boils down to the need for improved communication both with the nursing and support team and among the family.

Q: Not all families are good at communication. It’s not too hard to imagine some parents responding: “If you were a good son or daughter, you wouldn’t come for a one-week visit. I’m dying and I want you to move out here for six months.”

A: Every family has issues. If a parent were to say something like that, it would almost be a gift. I would look at that as an opportunity to have a family meeting, even if it had to be by video conference. At the meeting, the support team would encourage the patient to talk about the anxiety that was causing the patient to wish for something that wasn’t possible. It’s essential to address those disruptive feelings before all that guilt is placed on the caregiver.

Q: Who should people turn to to help facilitate the discussion?

A: Typically advanced practitioners in palliative care are trained to do that. Some communities may have a palliative care team available through their local hospitals or hospices which would be even better. And of course, if the person you’re caring for is in hospice, they’ll have the team.

Q: And if the patient is not in a support network of some kind?

A: First, you should access their primary care provider. They’ll know counselors in the community who can facilitate a family discussion. Second, two websites are very helpful: The National Alliance for caregiving, and the National council on Aging. Both have good links for local counseling. These sites also have a lot of great help for practical needs—paying bills, healthcare, transportation, and so forth.

Q: Is distance caregiving ever an advantage?

A: It can be. For our study, one person said a parent who was normally uncomfortable with personal matters seemed able to speak more freely over the telephone. I also hear from some people that the distance allows the relationship with a parent not to be all about the illness; the discussion turns to grandchildren or the patient’s relationship with people in the community.

Q: In communicating long distance, what’s most important?

A: Being upfront, expressing your true wishes to be able to help as best you can, despite the limitations. For the caregiver, it’s also important to remember that it’s okay to have those feelings of guilt and worry: that’s actually part of the job. It’s certainly not an easy one. Things are so different from 100 years ago when everyone lived next door.

–Steven Slon

Steven Slon is the Editorial Director for The Saturday Evening Post. This article was first posted at http://beclose.com/

]]>The New Science of Stresshttp://www.saturdayeveningpost.com/2011/11/04/in-the-magazine/health-in-the-magazine/stress.html
Fri, 04 Nov 2011 19:40:03 +0000http://www.saturdayeveningpost.com/?p=40586We now understand how chronic worry chips away at good health—and what it takes to relieve the tension of everyday life.

]]>The irony is not lost on Barbara Joyce, a teacher from Tenafly, New Jersey. The 52-year-old wife and mother of three has plenty of stress in her life, from the beating her retirement savings took during the 2008-2009 financial crisis to her two daughters’ struggles to find employment in the jobless recovery. And to top it off, she was in Tokyo during the March 2011 earthquake and tsunami. Since her doctor reminded her that stress can hurt her health, she has taken up jogging, and says she “literally runs off stress.” She can’t escape it entirely, though, and worrying that it is increasing her risk of cardiovascular disease, arthritis, and possibly some forms of cancer causes her … even more stress.

The suspicion that there is a connection between psychological stress and health—especially heart health—goes back to antiquity. In the mid-20th century endocrinologist Hans Selye coined the term “stress,” and described how the chronic, unrelieved kind can cause pathology, largely through the release of stress hormones including cortisol and adrenaline. Now advances in molecular biology and neuroscience have brought good news and bad news about stress and health. The bad news is that newly discovered mechanisms triggered by an overload of stress cause changes in neurons and the immune system that are more extensive than ever before suspected—with consequences for conditions as varied as asthma, arthritis, hypertension, and HIV/AIDS. The good news is that there are more ways than ever to reduce stress, even if you don’t feel like strapping on a pair of running shoes.

Anecdotal evidence of how stress impairs health is everywhere. Ed Rogers, 66, a public health consultant in Louisville, Kentucky, swears that whenever his wife yells at him for shirking his share of the housework he has to grab his inhaler to stave off an asthma attack. Whenever David, 64, of Breckenridge, Colorado, gets “tired and frustrated by the turkeys one is forced to work with/for,” he says, it causes “tension in the shoulders and neck tending toward headaches.” (Not wanting to offend those “turkeys,” David asks that his last name be withheld.)

But the evidence goes beyond anecdote. Chronic stressors such as financial, work, or marital problems plus the attendant depression, hostility, and anxiety account for about 30 percent of heart attack risk calculate a team of Swedish scientists. And high levels of the stress hormone cortisol strongly predict the likelihood that someone 65 or older will die of cardiovascular disease, as scientist Nicole Vogelzangs of VU University Medical Center and colleagues in The Netherlands found in a 2010 study. Previous research had “suggested that cortisol might increase the risk of cardiovascular mortality, but until now, no study had directly tested this,” said Vogelzangs. But her work found that people in the top one-third of cortisol levels are five times more likely to die of cardiovascular disease than those in the bottom one-third.

In one of the most elegant demonstrations of the link between stress and heart attacks, researchers at The University of Western Ontario (UWO) measured cortisol levels in hair, which is like examining tree rings to determine when droughts and other climate calamities occurred. Hair grows about 1 centimeter—just under half an inch—per month, explains UWO’s Gideon Koren, “so if we take a hair sample six centimeters long, we can determine stress levels for six months by measuring the cortisol level.” Using that approach on 56 men who had recently suffered a heart attack, he and colleagues found that the men had higher cortisol levels in the previous three months than comparable men hospitalized for other conditions, they reported last year.

“Experiments of nature” have offered dramatic demonstrations of the deadly effects of stress. Immediately after the 1994 Los Angeles earthquake, the number of cardiac deaths spiked two to five times the normal rate. And after the 9/11 attacks, the rate of defibrillator firings over the next month was two to three times normal, as the number of people whose heart needed to be shocked back into a normal rhythm soared as a result of chronic stress. But stress that falls short of the Richter scale and a terrorist attack can also harm health. Work, not surprisingly, is the stress mother lode. People working 50 hours a week or more are 13 percent more likely to report hypertension than people working 40 hours a week, and a stressful job with little decision-making authority raises blood pressure rates even during sleep.

Stress can harm health in two basic ways. One is by leading us to fall into unhealthy habits such as sleeping poorly, being less likely to exercise, smoking, and eating unhealthy foods (especially sugars and fats). The American Heart Association reports that 20 percent of Americans are worried that stress will affect their health—yet 36 percent of them say they deal with stress by drinking alcohol or eating. Result: a self-fulfilling prophecy. The poor health habits that result from stress account for an estimated two-thirds of the additional risk of heart attack and other cardiovascular illnesses in people with depression and anxiety, found a 2008 study in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology.

The other path from stress to illness winds through the endocrine, or hormone, system. Stress causes the brain’s hypothalamus to send a message to the adrenal glands, which sit just above the kidneys, to release cortisol. That may seem like a design flaw, but in fact cortisol helps the body recover from acute stress, including by raising blood sugar—the better to help you flee a saber-tooth cat. (The adrenals also release adrenaline, or epinephrine, and the related norepinephrine.) But trouble begins when too much cortisol is released, or when it is released unnecessarily—that is, not in response to an actual and immediate threat but to background anxiety—and remains chronically elevated. High cortisol levels cause chronic inflammation, which can cause arthritis to develop or worsen, and trigger the release of immune-system proteins called cytokines, implicated in such age-related diseases as Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, and type 2 diabetes.

How Stress Impairs Health

In Greek mythology, the monstrous Hydra terrorized visitors to a mystical lake. Beheading the Hydra was no easy task because it grew two new heads whenever one was cut off. The multiplying evil of the Hydra offers an apt analogy to the insidious ill-effects of stress in modern life. Chronic high levels of stress bring on a world of trouble on multiple body systems and can lead to…

Worsening of Asthma symptoms
This condition is marked by inflammation of the airways, so it’s no surprise that stress, by causing inflammation, increases asthma symptoms. A University of Wisconsin study showed how. When students with asthma inhaled an allergen (ragweed, dust mites, or cat dander), lung inflammation was 27 percent higher during finals than during a low-stress period—even though the allergen exposures were identical.

Cardiovascular disease
Stress increases blood levels of inflammatory molecules (called IL-6, C-reactive protein, and fibrinogen). These bad actors promote the development of atherosclerosis, or hardening of the arteries. The inflammatory molecules that trigger atherosclerosis also make the fatty arterial deposits called plaques more likely to rupture, causing a heart attack or stroke. Stress also causes the nerves to flood the bloodstream with a molecule called neuropeptide Y (NPY), which raises heart rate and blood pressure. NPY stimulates the growth of abnormal smooth muscle in blood vessels, which leads them to become blocked with plaque-like deposits of microphages, thrombus, and lipids.

Faster weight gain
NPY also seems to be the culprit behind our tendency to overeat and gain weight when we’re stressed. It throws a monkey wrench into the brain’s appetite-regulation system, and can also “unlock” receptors in fat cells, stimulating them to grow in size and proliferate. That also seems to be an evolutionary adaptation—early humans benefited from putting on fat in response to stress, which tended to be of the “mammoths are scarce this year” variety rather than the “I can’t make my mortgage payment” kind. As a result, a physiological response that was adaptive in the past is harmful today: We put on a nice layer of fat that doesn’t actually help us cope with the source of our stress. The effect is so powerful that stressed mice on high calorie diets gained twice as much fat as unstressed mice on the same diet.

High cholesterol
One reason mental stress can raise cholesterol levels may be that stress encourages the body to produce more energy—to fight or flee—including fatty acids and glucose. Both substances cause the liver to produce and secrete more LDL, or bad cholesterol.

Impaired immune system
Although scientists have long suspected that stress undercuts the immune response, only now has the mechanism behind that connection become clear. When we are stressed, the flood of NPY impairs the immune-system cells whose job is to fight infections. As a result, colds, flu, and other viral diseases are more likely. So are virally caused malignancies such as cervical cancer, which can be triggered by the human papillomavirus (HPV). HPV infection alone is not sufficient; the immune response causes most HPV infections to disappear. But, with stress in the mix, precancerous cervical lesions are more likely to progress to cancer.

Weakened response to HIV
Stress can bring about changes that allow the HIV virus to replicate more quickly, accounting for much of the variability in how people respond to an HIV infection. By keeping stress under control or avoiding stressors an HIV-positive person is more likely to remain asymptomatic for long periods rather than progressing to AIDS and is less likely to suffer opportunistic infections.

Increased risk of dementia
Psychological stress in middle age can raise the risk of dementia, especially Alzheimer’s disease, in old age. Scientists at Sweden’s University of Gothenburg followed 1,400 women for 35 years, asking them about their levels of psychological stress in 1968, 1974, 1980, 1992, and 2000 to see who developed dementia. Women who reported repeated periods of stress in middle age were 65 percent more likely to eventually develop dementia than women who did not. In women who reported stress at all time points, the risk was more than twice that of women who had escaped stress. So what’s the connection? A solid body of research shows that stress hormones called glucocorticoids are toxic to neurons and to the synapses that connect them, a phenomenon dubbed “neurostress.” The fewer synapses in a brain, the less of a cognitive cushion it apparently has after age-related mental decline sets in.

Premature aging
Psychosocial stress can reach into our very DNA, altering the “telomeres” that sit at the ends of chromosomes like the plastic tips at the end of shoelaces. Telomeres become shorter as the cell (and the person) ages. When enough telomeres reach a critically short length, the chromosome unravels like a shoelace that has lost its tip, and the cell stops dividing. This can trigger or contribute to age-related diseases. People under chronic stress have shorter telomeres and less of the enzyme telomerase, which repairs that damage, find scientists led by Ronald Glaser of Ohio State University.

Increased risk of cancer
This one’s a big “maybe.” The problem for scientists is that it is almost impossible to know whether a stress-free immune system keeps nascent tumors in check. Micro-scopic tumors are almost impossible to detect, so researchers can’t tell whose are being quashed by a healthy immune system and whose are being allowed to proliferate by a stress-impaired immune system. A 2007 study found that, in cell cultures, the stress hormone norepinephrine can ratchet up biochemical signals that stimulate tumor cells to proliferate. And in multiple myeloma cells growing in lab dishes, norepinephrine can increase production of proteins that foster metastasis. “For years it was thought that the immune system plays no role in cancer,” says immunologist Peter Lee of Stanford. That’s because cancer is part of the “self,” and the immune system targets only “non-self”—viruses, bacteria, organ transplants. But now, he explains, “We and other labs have uncovered multiple immune deficits in cancer patients.”

Harm to the next generation
Stress can jump the generation gap. A mother’s stress during pregnancy can influence the baby’s developing immune system in such a way as to make the child’s immune response go into overdrive. For example, such children are at higher risk for asthma and for allergies to dust.

Illustration by Gianpaolo Pagni

Learn to be Stress Free!

As science keeps uncovering more ways that stress can impair health, there is also increasing confidence that you really can learn to lower stress levels. Researchers today understand more precisely than ever what it takes to control stress.

Aerobic exercise is an excellent place to start. Regular exercise, especially when combined with stress management training, can actually decrease cardiovascular risk in patients with heart disease.

The next step is to adopt principles of what’s known as cognitive behavorial therapy (CBT) focusing on stress management. CBT includes monitoring yourself for signs of stress and learning such stress-management skills as deep breathing and spiritual development. In studies, people receiving CBT had a 41 percent lower rate of both fatal and non-fatal heart events, 45 percent fewer recurrent heart attacks, and a 28 percent lower rate of death over the eight years that they were followed.

Stress management can improve physiological markers of cardiovascular health, found a 2011 study. It was the first randomized trial to show that something other than drugs can improve blood flow to heart, health of blood vessels, and ability of the cardiovascular system to regulate surges in blood pressure.

Even the way you fight can make a difference. A 2009 study found that when couples used words to indicate that they are thinking about their conflict in a rational way rather than making accusations they experienced smaller increases in cytokines after the fight compared to couples who fought irrationally.

Proper stress manage-ment can even impact your DNA. Herbert Benson, M.D., who coined the term “relaxation response,” finds that yoga, prayer, and a meditation-like exercise he developed—sitting quietly, relaxing your muscles, breathing rhythmically, and repeating a “focus” word when you exhale for 20 minutes—all lower heart rate, blood pressure, and inflammation. And, as he describes in his book The Relaxation Revolution, these calming activities affect DNA. Comparing experienced meditators to novices, he and colleagues found that 2,209 genes were expressed differently—that is, switched on or off—in the two groups. Among them: genes involved in the immune system, inflammation, premature aging, and oxidative decay implicated in heart disease and cancer. But after just eight weeks of stress-management training, Benson finds, hundreds of genes in novice meditators moved away from the stressed-out pattern and instead resembled one that has been “associated through past research with clear health benefits.”

“Many of us wish that family gatherings were more like what we remember from our childhoods or see on television,” explains Zimmerman. “But dreams of a perfect holiday season can quickly become nightmares—and sometimes lead to bouts of depression.”

To treat yourself this holiday season, Zimmerman offers these five tips:

Avoid or reduce alcohol consumption. Liquor is a depressant that can deepen existing emotional problems.

Include exercise in your daily routine. A walk in the sunlight will add energy and help counteract seasonal affective disorder (SAD).

Maintain close friendships and confide in those you trust. Talking about your feelings helps reduce or eliminate the blues.

Read one of the dozens of books on the market to discover stress-busting tips.

Face the facts. No holiday gathering is perfect.

Those who have feelings of depression lasting more than two weeks to seek professional advice, adds Zimmerman. Symptoms of depression may include sleeplessness or sleeping too much, a lack of appetite, inability to concentrate and feeling hopeless.

]]>You have more control over how your body handles stress than you might think, advises exercise physiologist Jenny Evans.

“Stress will never go away completely,” says the popular wellness expert and coach. “It’s not about eliminating the factors that cause your stress; it’s more about training the body to adapt and recover from it more successfully.”

Research studies link stress with a variety of physical ailments from headache to depression to symptoms that mimic a heart attack. Evans offers these nutrition and fitness tips to prevent harmful stress overload.

Opt for snacks and meals that contain a combination of protein, fiber, and fat to steady your blood glucose levels and cut down on food cravings.

Practice mindful eating. Don’t eat while sitting in front of a computer at work or in front of a television at home. Put down the fork (or spoon) between bites.

Eat a small meal or snack every three to four hours to help prevent glucose levels from becoming too low or too high.

Fit fitness into your life. Aerobic activity and interval training reduce stress, boost energy, and help people get the deep sleep they need.

“It’s best to take on intense physical activity during the day or up three to four hours before bed,” adds Jenny Evans, who is also creator of the fitness program PowerHouse Hit the Deck. “Body temperatures increase during exercise and can take several hours to drop. It’s important to allow the body to cool off before sleep because cooler body temperatures are associated with sleep onset.”

The bottom line: Don’t consider stress as a synonym for distress. To protect your health and well-being, identify the stressors in your life, reduce the ones you can, and find healthy ways to respond to the ones that are not in your control.

“A family member or a boss at work is never going to ask less of you day to day,” says Evans, “but if you learn how to properly cope with stress, these demands become easier to handle.”